Archiving

One thing that spurred me to retirement was the thought of all the things that needed sorting, mostly of the archiving variety. For instance, all the photos. We made the mistake of not having indiviual albums for our children, so to minimise future hassle I feel that it would be good to create them now. It's on the ToDo List. I guess now most folk keep their photos on computers it would be easy to file them in separate folders. But not so much fun for children as looking through albums.
Then there are the family archives: stories to be written to make sense of the years of research and my in-laws wartime love letters. Just what should I do with them when I've read them? I am putting off doing so because I feel like a voyeur and yet the historian in me can't bring myself to just throw them away.
Anyway, that's all in the future for now, because tomorrow we're off! Watch this space and hopefully we'll be able to keep you posted on our trip to the States.
Chicago, here's we come.


Saga sisters

Gardens at Abbaye de Valloires

French whimsies

Ducks in the stream at the side of one house we stayed in. M. Reynard had eaten their companions.

This dog looks as if he's contemplating taking over the steering wheel.

France, Canada and America

All credit to Alastair Sawday, a website for B&B's 'with character' where we found these two places, each run by English couples as it happens, who gave us warm welcomes. It's rather more interesting to dawdle through France than do a mad overnight dash to the south as we used to. Of course, it's also easier when there are only two people to pay for. Later life does have its advantages.

Flattered and honoured to have a phone call recently from a friend of old in Canada who reads all our family blogs regularly. So keep it up guys. It's not just us reading each others.
We're off to America in about five days time. I am listening to a Radio 4 broadcast each day on its history and trying to get through Alastair Cooke's 'America' at the same time. It's a bit like revising for an exam.

Mis P's puppy memory

And maybe someone else's too........

My puppy memory

Aged 5(?) with one of Tessie's puppies. You can see her suckling the others. She used to have about seven at a time, fathered unofficially by the Welsh collie at a nearby farm. They were all sold, even the chubby little fellow we called The Millionaire.

Cute

One B&B we stayed at had five of these gorgeous bundles, five weeks old. Just as well they were all sold because they were quite tempting. Do they remind you of an other occasion? Next posting when I've got the hang of the scanner, I'll show what they reminded me and Miss P of. By the way it was Miss P's birthday recently and she is getting on a bit...............

France

We have just come back from a visit to France. It was a 'fitted in' holiday before our trip to the States. It was for our annual 'Saga' get-together, three brothers and wives. We joke about the Saga bit but we do inevitably end up talking about pensions, aches and pains, and are not together long enough to get talking about 'The Meaning of Liff'. The nearest we got was 'Is there Life after Children', as one branch has finished with weddings, so were they having Empty Nest syndrome. Answer: probably not, but it still raises what next questions.
We had some fun too.
The sun shone - yeah!-
I had a companion for a cryptic crossword,
the H of F had to ride in the boot when we were reduced to one car which was funny for everyone but him as he had to unfold afterwards, blackberrying,
carbonara at an Italian restaurant with the egg served in a separate little pot.
And that was just two days................

Join McClintock Fan Club

Have a look at this and when they're famous you can say you saw them first on The Compleat Grandma, their no.1 fan's blog.

Books

Several people lately have asked me for reading suggestions, as retirement has given me more leisure for such indulgence. Not that I really regard it like that. There are so many books in the world that I rather feel it's an obligation to get stuck in, although a delightful one.
I keep a notebook with titles I'd like to read at the back (probably noted from Saturday telegraph reviews in days when I had such a thing) and ones I've read in the front. Yesterday I finished my 42nd book in 2008. It was a biography of Dorothy Sayers, a complex creature who championed the Christian faith after WW2 without feeling any emotional involvement, which was probably just as well as her head ruled her heart, and her intellectual integrity stood. I liked one quote from her:

'At the Name of Jesus, every voice goes plummy'!!

I wonder do the voices in your church have a different sound within the building?

Here are my book suggestions:-
My Beautiful Career by Miles Kington
The Boy in Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne
The Island by Victoria Hislop
On the Side of Liglig Mountain by Thomas hale
Swan River by David Reynolds
An Idler on the Shropshire Borders by Ida Gandy
Secret believers by Brother Andrew
Destiny Obscure by John Burnett
Flame Trees of Thika by Elspeth Huxley
Diary of an Ordinary Woman by Margaret Foster
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khalid Hosseini

I've read too The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing which I heard described on the radio as 'seminal', but for me it was a struggle, akin to reading Moby Dick! The ones I've listed are easier reading by far.